Gordon Brown might have been in trouble at his monthly press conference yesterday if Japanese correspondents hadn't launched a diversion. Who'd have thought it, eh? When a chap is under pressure to admit his shameful role in the global financial meltdown you would expect Toyko's finest to offer him a sword with which to perform hara-kiri. Instead they changed the subject.

It happened like this. Wednesday at noon is usually David Cameron's ritual weekly opportunity to ask the prime minister to apologise. Last Thursday MPs on the Commons liaison committee had a go. But hey, another day another public platform on which to get it over with. "I screwed up," as Barack Obama feels able to say.

For once ex-chancellor Brown was nine minutes late because he had been in crisis talks with top money-wallahs from the IMF and World Bank. Never mind. When he swept into the conference room he smiled and cleared his throat. "Sorry", he said. "Sorry for not stress-testing the tripartite bank regulation system I introduced in 1997. That was wrong. Sorry for spending too much during the boom years. Silly me. Very sorry for taking housing costs out of the official inflation formula in 2003. That certainly made matters worse. I just screwed ... " Reporters gasped.

At this point your correspondent woke to find it was apology business as usual. Not only was GB stonewalling demands for the A-word, his staff handed out The Road to the London Summit: The Plan for Recovery. It is a glossy 74-page elaboration of his core alibi: that the US-led credit crunch in 2007 took everyone by surprise.

Though looking as if his kids had kept him up all night with measles or Grand Theft Auto, the PM was actually in quite a perky mood. He talked of a "global new deal" and the Lennonesque need for all nations at the G20 on 2 April to "come together", always a pleasing prospect. "There is no system of bonuses for my job," probably rightly he quipped at one of several tense bonus moments.

It was still horrible, an oiks' version of PMQs, a backstreet knifing live on TV. In quick succession he was asked (twice) about Harriet Harman plotting to take his job ("gossip", he loftily replied); about collusion with US torture ("I do not accept that") and tax avoidance; about what he will discuss with the pope today (not embryology) and Silvio Berlusconi (football as usual). "I do not own a football club while being prime minister, as he does."

This was a joke, but it failed to appease the feral pack. Those bad guys just kept on coming, just like in Grand Theft Auto. What was he doing to help Heather with her anorexia, asked Radio 1's man in a scruffy sweatshirt? What was his message for Jade Goody who has cancer, asked the dapper Sun? What message for Russia, for Iran, for sacked Mini-workers?

Brown allies insist that their man is always apologising, for the 10p tax fiasco for instance (he did again yesterday). But students of the A-word may feel that he also came close to admitting that UK bank regulation hadn't been perfect. "Though it was better than other countries in the world, it has to be better still," he said.

This was progress. Fortunately the Japanese launched a diversion. "Our finance minister resigned yesterday because he was apparently drunk at the finance ministers meeting in Rome," said a news agency man. "What do you make of his miserable behaviour and what do you make of the miserable Japanese economy now?"

Brown spluttered cheerfully. An ex-finance minister in bigger trouble than himself was obviously a pleasing thought. "The finance minister has been very ambitious in some of the things he has been recommending ..." he replied.

Reporters could all picture the scene. When fellow finance ministers in Rome had washed down their Glenmorangies with a shot of Toyota single malt sake, Shoichi Nakagawa must have urged them all to try the 1981 Château Pétrus with their cheese. After that he had spotted a very good sauternes ...

Everyone chuckled. But the Japanese refused to give up. "Was it right for him to step down?" another correspondent later asked. "And if Alistair Darling did the same thing ..."

Brown ducked it. But we knew the answer. If Darling got slaughtered on the job, No 10 would tell him to blame those sub-prime mortgages.